Business news

MINSK, 11 December (BelTA) – Belarus-Kazakhstan trade is expected to get close to $1 billion, BelTA learned from Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Kazakhstan to Belarus Yermukhamet Yertysbayev at a press conference on 11 December.

The ambassador noted that Belarus-Kazakhstan trade and economic cooperation advances rather effectively but the task given at the top level to raise the bilateral trade volume to $1 billion has not been accomplished yet. According to the diplomat, in January-October 2018 Belarus-Kazakhstan trade reached $700 million, with Belarus securing a foreign trade surplus.

According to Yermukhamet Yertysbayev, the visit of Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev to Minsk in November 2017 gave an impulse to the development of Belarus-Kazakhstan cooperation. A Belarus-Kazakhstan business forum took place back then. Five commercial memorandums and agreements on delivering $73.4 million worth of agricultural machines, dump trucks, and utility vehicles were signed during the forum.

The ambassador stressed that many agreements had been implemented already. The fact was mentioned during the 14^th session of the Belarus-Kazakhstan intergovernmental commission on trade and economic cooperation in Minsk in November 2018. Participants of that meeting summed up results achieved so far this year and sketched out new promising avenues of Belarus-Kazakhstan cooperation.